Greetings, I am Rex Draconem and I have been playing MOBAs for many years now and have made numerous concepts, but have only tried to publish one before, and the LoL community did not take it well. I have learned, I hope, from looking at other concepts and the failings of my first try. I realize that the skills should be in different order, but I added them as I thought of them. A more logical order would be: W in the Q position, E in the W position, and Q in the E position. This is my first Heroes of the Storm concept. I present, Zul'jin: The Amani Warlord.
Zul'jin in the Warcraft universe starting in Warcraft 2 as a named axe thrower. He never had a rage ability, but that was added to other troll units and thus is needed for future trolls and with him making the transition to a melee unit in Zul'Aman and even a leader type healer in the WoW D20 game so he is a very versatile character. I used this logic with some inspiration from the Troll Warlord in DOTA 2 to have him be both melee and ranged, and ignoring the healer aspects from the D20 game because it did not mesh well with the other must have for most troll heroes.
The play style I imagined was an auto attack focused character that would poke a hero down in ranged form and finish them off in melee form; similar to Faris in Dawngate, or an auto attack focused Elise from LoL. I also would imagine there would be talent choices to favor one form or the other depending on play style.
The effects of his trait (D) are designed to be trade off, naturally, he is a ranged hero, and I could not think of many drawbacks for that which would make sense so I decided to make the ranged abilities weaker than the melee ones. I wanted a trade off for when he dived into melee range. He deals more damage, but has extra damage taken as a disincentive from staying in that form all the time as you will die very quickly. Numbers are, of course, subject to change. The reason for the seemingly long cooldown between switching is to prevent too much back and forth between the forms as they can be too strong, but may be removed if this concept ever sees the battlefield if it is necessary. I really want him to only change once in a fight, maybe twice with clever use of Axe Toss.
His first ability (Q) is designed to be be a way to help his team with some utility if you are alone or caught. In ranged form I wanted a unique method of poke and I have never seen a concept use minions to that end. This can also be used as a split pushing tool if you wish to go that tactic. It also fits thematically as he was very influential. If you are alone or get caught you may use this ability to kite until help arrives or to keep prey from escaping until you are within execution range with your melee form. The melee version of this is to add sustain (a homage to Troll Regeneration) that is more interactive than typical versions of troll regeneration in that you have to attack to heal. Only other version I thought of was a bad version of Muridan's trait and thought this would also allow Zul'jin to support his team in fights as they will heal for the damage they deal. To give Zul'jin something he can do if he is caught the solo version of this ability removes one drawback of melee form to help him survive in a duel or to allow him to live a little longer until help arrives, but ranged Q is better for survival.
The second ability (W) is to allow Zul'jin to make some fancy plays and escapes, like Tyreal's Q. To distinguish between the two Zul'jin's will damage all enemies in a line where Tyreal's only effects the area his sword lands. Tyreal's is also a blink, while Zul'jin's is a dash which is interuptable to allow for more counter play for well coordinated teams or skilled tanks. the melee form of this ability to is to give Zul'jin an execution to help him do his job in a team fight and the idea of using ranged W to get into range or over a wall for melee W just sounded really cool so ranged W will force Zul'jin into melee form.
His third ability (E) is designed to help him poke more, but is conditional to account for its power. This can be triggered by the solo Q ability, but that is only temporary and not reliable, this is for a team fight with an Arthas or other instance where you would get the Executioner talent, is designed for poke (and I could not resist the picture). The melee form is mostly for the movement speed boost to allow him to chase enemies to finish them off.
Both heroic abilites are to focus on ranged or melee form depending in your play style. For the first heroic (R1) ability I wanted to pay homage to Zul'Aman. Dragonhawk was his final form in the raid, but would be one of the first things he will do in a team fight. this ability will burn your enemies and deal ranged carry damage. all enemies in the cone will be effected by his ranged E if they are CCed and his solo Q. Using W to dash will not put him in melee form and will lead to a dead Zul'jin if used that way. After the form ends, or is canceled by pressing R again, then you can dice people in melee form if you want.
You can't talk about trolls without talking about voodoo or mojo. Thus his second ability was originally going to based on the Warcraft 3 heroic ability Big Bad Voodoo, but only for himself. This was then going to be exactly the same as Tryndamere's ult, which I find terrible. To account for one of the issues I wanted Zul'jin to die if he did something too stupid, thus the negative HP clause where he will still die. To account for this loss in power the effects of his trait are doubled, including damage taken to make it harder for him to not die after the ult ends. this can be combined with clever use of his melee Q to remove the extra damage taken from this ult as well, and heal thanks to Bersek Regeneration. The idea is that you will die unless you are really good and take some poor bastards with you.
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy.
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